The potential costs of Gov. Perdue's flag vote keep adding up

When Gov. Sonny Perdue unfurled his proposal for a referendum on the state flag, we worried the measure would drain energy and attention from far more critical issues facing Georgia.

On Feb. 13 Perdue announced his plan for a non-binding flag referendum which features two questions - whether the current flag should be changed and a choice between two options for its replacement. Voters would have to answer both questions for their ballots to be counted.

Within days of the governor's announcement, we learned there was even greater reason for concern. The referendum will cost us much more than lost time and misdirected focus. According to Secretary of State Cathy Cox, Perdue's plan could siphon more than $2 million from the state's coffers.

Given the state's current financial crisis, that $2 million could lessen the severity of budget cuts threatening everything from college scholarships to Medicaid to economic development. We've made no secret of our dislike for Perdue's plans to revisit the state flag issue. Now there are 2 million more reasons against pursuing this foolishness.

Last week, Cox gave Perdue a five-page explanation of why she believes his proposal is flawed. At the top of her list: Requiring voters answer both questions for their ballots to be counted will necessitate major - and costly - modifications to the state's 22,000 new electronic voting machines.

Because the machines are not programmed to discard votes if all questions aren't answered, new software would have to be installed for the referendum and then removed afterward to accommodate the all-or-nothing voting process Perdue suggests. To prevent computer hacking, the machines are not networked, which means the software would have to be loaded and unloaded on each machine individually.

If the referendum wasn't designed to discard incomplete ballots, Cox said it would have no additional cost for the state.

Because the non-binding referendum is intended to direct the Georgia General Assembly's action on this issue, Perdue wants it to result in one of the three flags getting a majority of votes. His concern with allowing voters to choose between the three flags in a single-question referendum is it likely would conclude with none of the options getting more than 50 percent of the vote.

The lack of a mandate could be problematic for the legislature. Unable to take cover behind a ''The People Have Spoken'' excuse, some lawmakers would have to take full responsibility for a politically unpopular or even irresponsible position. It means legislators would have to actually lead rather than follow lemming-like down a path that is easy but not necessarily in the state's best interest.

Doing the right thing in the face of political risks takes courage. Sadly, when it comes to the flag, there doesn't seem to be much of that in the state's capitol.